Last week we took an early look at Dead Body Road on the CBMFP and then I also sat down to review the issue. Well today we have an interview with writer Justin Jordan about Dead Body Road and the first few pages to go along with the interview. Let's get started!--
Dustin: To start with what do you hope the reader takes away from reading Dead Body Road?

Justin: Well, I think the first thing always hope for is that they enjoyed the damn thing. If they’re not having fun, I’m really not doing my job. That said, I do have ambitions for my books to be about stuff.

This one is about revenge, he said, stating the obvious. But it’s about the cost revenge takes on us, when it can’t possible restore what we’ve lost to begin with. What is the point of vengeance, beyond cruel satisfaction? Does drawing a line in the sand between people you deserve killing and those you don’t make you any better than a killer, plain and simple?

There’s something in there, too, about the difference between what we think we are and what we do. You can think you’re a good person who does bad things, but does it matter to anyone else? Is that just self-serving bullshit?

After reading Dead Body Road and Luther Strode I have to ask what your process for writing action sequences? What notes do you give the artists or do you just let them go wild?

I write full script, and that includes the action scenes. I like action to have a kind of ebb and flow to it, so I do take a lot of care when writing it. Now having said that, I always tell the artists to go wild and if they can think of something better to go for it. And they usually do.

What were some of your influences for Dead Body Road and what were some plot traps you tried to avoid with the series?

The one thing I probably tried to avoid most was painting Gage as a straight up good guy. Now you can make the argument that people he’s going after deserve what is coming to them, and I wouldn’t disagree. But, and this may sound like a weird distinction, just because someone needs killing doesn’t mean that you killing them makes you a good person.

It’s clear from the first issue of Dead Body Road that there’s a larger story going on outside of the revenge plotline; will this series be anything like Luther Strode and have different volumes or will we see everything play out in one series?

Nope, just these six issues. In retrospect, I kind of do wish I had some more space, because there’s a couple of relationships that would have been interesting to flesh out more (for instance, Cobb and Gage are….acquainted) but the whole story is revealed in these six issues.

Dead Body Road is being published under the Skybound imprint, is there any difference when working with Skybound from Image prime?

Well, there’s editing, which is probably the biggest change. With Luther Strode, it’s pretty much just me, Tradd and Felipe. So if the story is good or bad or we fuck something up, that is all on us. Here, I have the editorial staff at Skybound and Kirkman to bounce stuff off of, which is not unpleasant.
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A big thank you to Justin Jordan for his time and don't forget to pick up Dead Body Road #1 from Image/Skybound on December 11th.